Leon burst into the narrow passage leading to a sealed courtyard and, at the very last second, squeezed through the tight metal gate. His backpack scraped against protruding bars, his shoulder grazed rough brick, and then he spun around sharply, facing the entrance. He planted his feet wide and steady, instinctively knowing that this spot would decide whether he survived the next few minutes.
A cold, taut smile touched his lips, not from confidence, but from absolute focus. Fear stopped screaming. His thoughts narrowed to a single point.
He raised the sword, and felt Cold Mind surge more strongly than before. The chaos in his head faded almost completely. His breathing evened out. The world seemed to slow, letting him take in multiple details at once: the uneven stonework, rust creeping along the gate, the shadow of a rapidly approaching shape.
He waited. He knew the hound wouldn't stop. Its momentum and predator's tunnel vision would drive it straight into the bottleneck, where speed would become a curse instead of an advantage. He heard its rasping breath, claws scraping asphalt, felt the vibrations of its steps echoing between the walls.
Then the mutant's head forced its way into the gate.
Leon moved. He swung with all his strength, aiming for the head, the neck, the point that would end everything in a single strike. But a fraction of a second decided everything. The beast jerked violently, and instead of its skull, the blade struck its torso, plunging deep, almost to the hilt, tearing through muscle and bone with a wet, brutal sound.
The creature let out a low, bubbling howl. Its body convulsed, hind legs scrambling uselessly for purchase, claws scraping the ground as it tried to pull back. Leon felt the resistance, the weight of the body hanging on the blade, and instantly understood.
This isn't enough.
He didn't retreat.
He braced one foot against the metal frame of the gate, cold steel biting into his sole, shifted his weight forward, and with a raw shout of effort dragged the sword sideways. It wasn't elegant. It wasn't technical. It was pure brutality, determination and fear turned into motion.
The blade tore free in a fountain of blood and shredded tissue.
The dog's body, nearly cut in half, collapsed limply on the other side of the gate. Its legs twitched once… twice… and then went completely still. The silence that followed in the courtyard was almost deafening after the chase.
Leon stood there for a moment, breathing hard, sword hanging loosely at his side, feeling the adrenaline drain away, leaving behind trembling muscles and a sticky chill of sweat on his neck.
He'd barely managed a few ragged breaths when the familiar, emotionless system window unfolded before his eyes, its presence still deeply dissonant against the blood, the torn body, and the stench of death filling the narrow space.
[Essence Record , Kill Confirmed]
[Target: Mutated Hound (LVL 6)]
[Reward: +1 STR | +5 AGI]
Leon blinked sharply as a brief impulse ran through his body, almost imperceptible, but enough to make his legs and arms feel lighter, more responsive, as if some unseen tension had suddenly loosened.
He didn't have time to dwell on it.
Beside the dead hound, right next to the pooling blood, another item appeared, a small, matte cube in a warm brown shade, hovering a few centimeters above the ground.
"Brown Box…" he muttered under his breath, noticing the different color.
He reacted on instinct. He crouched, grabbed the box with one hand, and in the same motion kicked the hound's heavy corpse aside, clearing the passage. Without looking back, he squeezed through the narrow gate again.
He could already hear it, long, distant moans, the scrape of feet, isolated guttural growls starting to overlap, as if the city were slowly waking up right here.
The noise of the fight, the beast's scream, it had done its job.
"We're not staying here," he said quietly to himself.
He burst back onto the street and immediately broke into a run, keeping the sword low at his side so it wouldn't catch on obstacles. When he found a brief pocket of relative safety between two parked cars, he shoved the Brown Box deep into his backpack without opening it for even a second.
He was intensely curious about what was inside, but he knew this wasn't the moment.
He kept running. His heart hammered in his chest, his lungs burned, but his legs carried him faster than before, with a new lightness he didn't yet fully understand.
Damn… I really feel lighter. I'll need to figure out how these stats actually work later, Leon thought as he remembered the very first system window on the bus, the one telling him he could now check his statistics.
Behind him, the city reacted, more noise, more movement, and Leon knew one thing for certain: stopping here would be a death sentence.
Sword in hand and the weight of a new box in his pack, he vanished into the ruins before the first zombie silhouettes reached the narrow courtyard where his fight with the mutated hound had just ended.
He slowed briefly when his eyes caught on one of the apartment blocks along a side street, specifically, a single window on the third floor, still glowing with warm yellow light, completely out of place in the dead city. He gave a small nod, more to himself than anyone else. If there was still electricity inside, it might be a decent shelter, at least for one night, before darkness swallowed the city completely.
"One night…" he muttered, quickening his pace.
He ran up to the stairwell entrance and immediately spotted the problem, the door was locked, solid, with thick glass in its upper section. He didn't waste time tugging the handle. Gripping the sword with both hands, he smashed the back of the blade into the glass, once, twice, until it shattered with a dry crack and spilled inward. He slid his hand through carefully, avoiding the jagged edges, pressed the handle from the inside, and slipped in, pulling the door shut behind him.
The smell of mildew and dust hit him instantly.
It didn't slow him down. He took the stairs two at a time, glancing around nervously. Open apartment doors, scattered shoes, overturned furniture, all of it made it clear this place hadn't been safe for a long time.
On the first landing, he heard a soft shuffle.
Before he could stop, a zombie stepped out from behind the wall.
Leon actually slowed in surprise, confusion flickering across his face as he instinctively sidestepped.
Were they always this slow? he wondered.
One short motion later, he stepped in and drove the sword straight through the zombie's head, clean, precise, without hesitation. The body collapsed almost instantly.
[Essence Record , Kill Confirmed]
[Target: Normal Zombie (LVL 2)]
[Reward: +1 VIT]
Leon didn't pause. He yanked the blade free and kept moving, struck by how… easy it had been.
One floor up, two more waited. They staggered into the stairwell, unsteady and sluggish, their movements oddly delayed. Instead of slowing down, Leon accelerated. He closed the distance, split the first skull with a simple thrust, and before the second could even raise its arms, he slashed through the side of its neck, ending the fight before it truly began.
[Essence Record , Kill Confirmed]
[Target: Normal Zombie (LVL 1)]
[Essence Record , Kill Confirmed]
[Target: Normal Zombie (LVL 2)]
Notably, no stat notification appeared this time, but Leon didn't focus on that now.
He stopped for a moment, frowning, looking at the corpses… then at his own hands, gloved, still holding the sword with unwavering control.
"Are they…" he murmured. "Were they always this slow?"
The thought wouldn't let go.
Instead of pushing it aside, he let it unfold, his mind drifting back to the bus, to that first absurd system message that had appeared before the world truly fell apart. Stats. Back then, they'd felt like just another part of the nightmare, illogical, detached from reality.
Then there was the dog.
The mutated dog. The kill. The message. The numbers he'd ignored because there hadn't been time.
+5 Agility.
Leon looked down again at the zombies at his feet, at how they'd fallen, without a real fight, without posing a serious threat, and something finally clicked into place.
It's not that they're slower.
It's that I'm faster.
"…So that's how it works," he murmured, lifting one hand and flexing his fingers, watching them respond instantly, no delay, no hesitation, with a precision he'd never had before. "Agility… reflexes… reaction time."
He remembered the panic and chaos of the streets, but now, after the fight with the hound and the earlier encounters, these zombies felt… slowed. Like they belonged to a lower tier of threat altogether.
I need to check my stats as soon as I get a moment.
The thought had barely formed when something else caught his attention on the next floor.
An apartment door stood open.